“So,” she began, and Ladon answered, “Sora.”
“Not again.” Dahlia had kicked off her polished shoes, and was massaging her toes, looked up with a scowl.
“I’m afraid so,” Ambrus said. He poured her a small brandy — she had retired with the other ladies, had missed most of the drinking — and turned back to the tea service.
There was a silence, broken only by the hiss of the lamp and the murmur of the water as it came to a boil. Ambrus finished the cup, but Ladon waved it irritably aside.
“Yes, something has to be done,” he said, and Dahlia nodded.
“It does,” she agreed, and behind her Ambrus nodded in turn.
“She’s too much of a liability.”
Reluctantly, Ladon pulled himself away from the fall of cool air, let himself drop into the patched armchair. It was one of the few pieces of furniture that had been his own, and the cushions were worn to his shape. He leaned back, letting his head rest on the cushions. He had known Sora a long time, had served with her under Kolya, and he had always known this day would come.
“So.”
“Do you remember Jennet Sarbres?” Dahlia asked.
Ladon blinked. “No — kin of Sarbres Tel?”
“Her father,” Dahlia said. “He’s still chief of mines in the western province, but Harkis is going to propose him as his successor.”
Ladon nodded.
“Jennet is engaged to Faber,” Dahlia said. “The announcement will be official tomorrow, but she was showing the bracelets to everyone in the withdrawing room.”
“So,” Ladon said again, and heard the weariness in his own voice. Faber Marz was the reason Sora had lived as long as she had: the colonel was a rising man in the Genii army, with connections and the skill to back them up, and a needed ally. Sora had also been his mistress for the last year — but if he was engaged to a politically important woman, he wasn’t in any position to protect Sora. In fact, he’d probably be relieved to have the problem solved for him… Ladon couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her, hot-headed and obsessed with her father’s death, but he buried the treacherous sympathy.
“There’s plenty of cause for arrest,” Ambrus said, tentatively, and Ladon shook his head. The last thing he wanted was a show trial, particularly on the kind of trumped-up charges they’d have to bring against her. He owed her that much — owed Dahlia, too, not to bring down one of the few other women who had held any official position.
“An accident,” he said, and saw Dahlia’s brief, rueful smile. “Arrange an accident.”
“Yes, Chief,” Ambrus said, and offered the tea again. This time Ladon took it, cradling the cup in both hands, and Dahlia sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Ladon said. “We knew it was coming.”
The telephone buzzed in its alcove, and Ambrus moved to answer it. Ladon watched incuriously, lifted an eyebrow as Ambrus turned back to face him.
“It’s the Lanteans, Chief. They want to talk to you.”
“Of course they do,” Ladon said. “Tell them it’s the middle of the night here, and unless it’s an emergency, you’re not going to wake me. Find a mutually agreeable time — sometime when it’s daylight here — and get back to me.”
“Yes, Chief,” Ambrus said again, and stepped back into the alcove.
“Sateda was always a gamble,” Dahlia said.
“Yes.” Ladon took a sip of the cooling tea, the brandy curdling in his stomach. “But — you said it yourself. We need to get our new ship battleworthy, and Sateda has the artifacts.”
“I did say it.” Dahlia sighed again. “And it’s still true. We’re making progress, but — it’s slow going. Maybe Woolsey will be reasonable.”
“Maybe,” Ladon said, but he knew she heard the doubt.
The team from Atlantis came through the gate to Sateda on their guard this time, but there were no Genii uniforms visible in the square. It was near dark, with lights visible in some of the windows, and the smell of cooking strong in the air. Ronon lifted his head, testing the familiar odors.
“That smells good, whatever it is,” Lynn said.
“We are not here for dinner,” Radek said a little shortly.
“Let us find Ushan Cai,” Teyla said in the tones of a children’s teacher telling everyone that it was time to paint pictures of happy animals. Standing here in the familiar square, the memory was unexpectedly vivid, his old schoolroom and the chalky brightness of tempera paints wet on the paintbrush.
Ronon shook his head to clear it. “Let’s,” he said.
Cai was in the old hotel, eating dinner with several other men and women, but he stood at once when he saw them. “Ronon,” he said. “Come, share our dinner if you will.”
Teyla glanced at Ronon, ready to take her cue from him about whether the offer was meant to be taken or just polite words. Lynn did as well, which surprised Ronon a little, since in his experience most of the Earth people tended to do whatever they thought was polite without asking questions.
“We’d like that,” he said, and took one of the empty chairs. The rest of the team followed him, and although he suspected Radek thought they were wasting their time, it didn’t show. That made him think of Rodney, who’d have made his impatience clear enough even if he didn’t say anything about it. It wasn’t the same without him, even if it meant they didn’t have Teyla shooting Rodney warning looks across the table.
He waited until someone had found them plates and served them stew that looked to be made with whatever from offworld would store well, sausage and root vegetables over cooked grains. Radek and Teyla were more earnest than effective in their attempts to eat with proper sticks instead of the Lanteans’ forks, but Lynn managed well, although he held them strangely.
“We came to talk about making another trade,” Ronon said.
Cai smiled, although it wasn’t entirely an easy gesture. “And here I was hoping you’d had a chance to consider our request already.”
“We can talk about that,” Ronon said. “But we think there’s something in the museum that we could really use.” He nodded at Radek, and Radek put his laptop on the table to show Cai the picture of the ZPM. Cai looked both at the picture and at the computer.
“We found records that suggest that this device may be somewhere in storage at the museum,” Radek said.
“Of course it’s possible that it’s not still intact,” Lynn added. “It’s apparently a fragile device, but I think the museum curators would have recognized that simply looking at it. They may well have taken sufficient precautions for it to have survived, especially since it doesn’t seem to have been on display at the time of the Wraith attack.”
“It’s pretty enough,” Cai said casually. “What is it?”
Radek hesitated, only for a moment, but Ronon didn’t think Cai missed it. “A power source,” he said. “We call it a ZPM, a zero-point module.”
Cai frowned for a moment, probably trying to make the connection between the word and the phrase before recognizing that “ZPM” must be an abbreviation in someone else’s alphabet. Then he nodded and said, “What kind of a power source?”
“One that can be used to power parts of the city of the Ancestors,” Teyla said. “It was specially designed by them to be used in their devices.”
Cai gave her a trader’s smile. “You mean that it won’t work for us here. I have to tell you, though, right now power is our greatest challenge. We’re relying on coal, and that takes people to mine and transport. If this device could supply electric power — ”
“I think there is no way for it to interface with your electrical power system,” Radek said. “Please do not take offense, but it is simply not advanced enough. Neither are the systems on our own world. The Ancients had amazing technology.”